


I Will Face My Fear

by beer_good



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twin Peaks
Genre: Alcohol, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Crossover, Demonic Possession, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 17:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2660762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beer_good/pseuds/beer_good
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day in early season 5, Agent Cooper just happens to walk into Willy's Bar just as Riley Finn just happens to be in there drowning his relationship issues... </p><p>Written for <b>A Ficathon Goes Into A Bar</b>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Face My Fear

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't the first BtVS/Twin Peaks crossover I've written, it's kind of in the same larger JossLynchverse as [A Code Waiting To Be Broken](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2143020).

**Title:** I Will Face My Fear  
 **Author:** Beer Good ([](http://beer-good-foamy.dreamwidth.org/profile) **beer_good_foamy** )  
 **Prompt:** Agent Dale Cooper goes into a bar and meets... Riley Finn!  
 **Fandoms:** _Buffy The Vampire Slayer_ / _Twin Peaks_ , set in early s5 of _Buffy_ , and consequently about 10 years after the s2 finale of _Twin Peaks_.  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Riley Finn, Dale Cooper. Riley/Buffy discussed.  
 **Word count:** ~1200  
 **Rating/Contents:** PG13

_This is his true face. Few can see it. The gifted... and the damned.  
\- MIKE_

**I Will Face My Fear**

It was 5PM, and Riley was already well on the way to being drunk. After all, nobody comes to Willy’s Bar for the ambience; you’re either here to get information, to get in trouble, or to get away from everything. But he wasn’t so drunk he didn’t notice when the Suit (as opposed to just a guy in a suit; several years in special forces teaches you a thing or two) sat down on… or rather hopped onto the barstool next to him. And then there was the fact that Willy reacted as if he’d seen a ghost, which, to be fair, wasn’t unheard of here.

"Willy, good to see you again!"

"A-agent Cooper. Good to have you back." Willy always had the worst pokerface in bartenderdom. "What can I get you?"

"You know..." Cooper put his fingertips together with a disarming smile a mile wide. "The last time I was in here, you had a bottle of 12-year-old Glenlivet Single Malt. Any chance you still have some?"

"Uh... Sure. You want ice with that?"

"Absolutely not. Thank you." Willy put the glass in front of him before quickly finding some glasses to wipe down at the other end of the bar. The agent turned to Riley and held his hand out. "Agent Finn. Good to meet you. Agent Dale Cooper, FBI."

Riley looked at his hand for a few seconds before giving it a shake with as much leave-me-alone in it as he could muster. "I’m afraid your intel is a bit out of date, I haven't been Agent Finn in months. What can I do for you?"

Cooper laughed and held his hand up; "Oh, please, I'm not here to trouble you for anything. I just happened to be passing through Sunnydale for the first time in… gosh, it's been more than ten years. But - do you mind if I call you Riley? For the record," he leaned closer with a sincere look, "as far as I'm concerned, once a man has done the sort of work you have, in the Initiative and out of it, there's no honourable discharge in the world that can turn him into plain old 'Mister' again if he doesn't want it to."

Riley knocked back his drink and signalled Willy for another. "And here I thought that was classified information."

"Don't worry, I'm not here on official business. By the way, how's Buffy?"

Riley's drink halted halfway to his mouth. He put it back down on the counter and turned to face Agent Cooper, making sure Cooper noticed he had about 30 pounds on him. "OK, who the hell are you and what do you want?"

"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Riley. Please, let me explain." He gave Riley a second to speak up, then continued. "About ten years ago, the Bureau sent me here to investigate one Richard Wilkins III, mayor of Sunnydale for what I soon realised was a disturbingly long time. Unfortunately I was soon called away on another case which kept me busy for years, but thanks to some… sources I've kept tabs on the good mayor. That is, until Miss Summers did us all a favor." He took a sip of scotch and grimaced. "I think this is the exact same bottle Willy had ten years ago, too. Anyway, no one knows better than me that sometimes a man must be alone, but it’s not always you find a man who’s saved the world twice getting drunk on a beautiful afternoon with his lovely girlfriend nowhere in sight. Some might think my running into you here is a coincidence, but I don’t believe in coincidences. So if there’s anything you want to get off your chest, well, I have all day."

And Riley knew he probably shouldn’t; nothing good ever came from trusting federal employees who claimed to know what was good for him. But honestly, there was something about Cooper that made him trust him, and before he knew it, he was telling him the whole story. How he felt like Buffy was shutting him out now that her mother was sick, how he’d given up everything he’d ever worked for to be with her, to take care of her, and now it was slipping through his fingers and he’d be left with nothing. How being nice and normal and… _weak_ simply wasn’t enough for someone used to killing things with her bare hands. How he was sure he loved her more than she him, and the more he thought so, the more he kept seeing signs of it everywhere. Come to think of it, he may have used the word "terrified" once or twice. "So you tell me, Agent Cooper. Am I being paranoid?"

Cooper thought about it, looking down into his drink. "I know what it's like to... get in over your head. I won’t bore you with the details; suffice to say that there have been times when I’ve lost more than I could ever imagine losing. But one of the greatest men I've ever known – a colleague of yours, as it happens – once told me something, and I believe it to be true. He said that there are powerful forces of evil in the world. That it is some men's fate to confront great darkness, and we each choose how to react. If the choice is fear, then we become vulnerable to darkness." He looked Riley square in the eye. "You are one of those men, Riley. You and I both know that there are beings out there that feed on pain and suffering. Call them demons, spirits or whatever you want, but if those are the kind of emotions that Buffy makes you feel… Well," and suddenly his smile was all teeth, "then you need to make her stop doing that."

For a second, Riley glanced at the mirror behind the bar and flinched. He could have sworn there was something ... wrong with Cooper's reflection. He quickly scanned the bar, looking for a man in denim, with long dirty grey hair and a face like a Halloween mask, but couldn't see one. "Stop?"

"Stop." The smile was unrelenting. "Fear is the mind killer, Riley. Just because Buffy’s stronger than you, physically speaking, doesn’t mean you can let her get away with dominating you like this. Maybe together we can figure out a way to… let’s say, teach her a lesson. For her own good. You said it yourself, you’re the one who’s supposed to take care of her. What do you say?"

And maybe it was just how darn likable Cooper was, or the booze, or the slow, moody, hypnotic song that had suddenly started playing on the jukebox, but Riley had to admit that… "I guess."

The being that for over ten years had worn Dale Cooper’s face laughed and slapped his shoulder. "Riley, you're all right. Walk with me and we’ll have some fun."

"You got it… Dale."

"Please. My friends call me Bob." Cooper's grin widened even more as he started snapping his fingers to the music. "I love this song, don’t you?"


End file.
